[lbo-talk] Computing R&D: science or enginering

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 6/7/07, Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Tayssir John Gabbour:
> As for his substantive points, I don't see why math is
> any different.  After all, scientists make frequent
> use of math. But maybe I misunderstand.
>
> He addresses this in the interview:
> [...]
> The utility of the machines we've fashioned from these
> ideas and methods took center stage, causing most of
> us to mistake the machine for the computing principle
> which, now that we're looking more carefully, we're
> beginning to see all around us in unexpected places.

I do agree with the argument that computer science isn't really about
computers: it's more general than that.

But I think there's similar weirdness about why math is so useful to
(say) physicists. Why should the universe act this way?

    "The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics

    for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift

    which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for

    it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that

    it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even

    though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of

    learning."

    http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

(I found Kolmogorov's claim pretty convincing though, that math is the
distillation of much human experience, and so it shouldn't be too
surprising that we find ideas from math pretty applicable. Maybe we
perceive numbers and the structure of 3D visual space all over the
place because of the way our brains are wired. But I'm not at all very
knowledgeable about math or philosophy, so take this with a grain of
salt.)

Tayssir

--
[Disclaimer: I only skimmed the Wigner link I offered. ;) Too much of
what I perceived as gushing. Many of us see mathematics as a dull
thing, imposed from above, and papers like those tend to trip my
unreality meter.]